How are magazines and newspapers doing now that everyone reads it online? 
Friday, September 27th, 2007

You check the news online.  Maybe celebrity gossip.  Maybe women's health, or the stock market, or the latest fashion tips.  Whatever it is that you look for, there it is on the internet.  What does that mean for the fate of magazines and newspapers?  I know I haven't used a phonebook in years...will it be that way one day with other printed media?

"It's a long, slow sunset for ink-on paper magazines," Felix Dennis, a publishing entrepreneur told The Economist, "but sunsets can produce vast sums of money."  They can?  Crap!  Now I can stop looking for pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Dennis recently sold his firm's American outfit, which publishes Maxim, to a private equity business.  The Economist also reported that FHM magazine has lost a quarter of its circulation.  Guys are starting to realize that they don't have to hide their computer under the mattress.

But newspaper and magazine publishers can have hope.  According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the newspaper website audience grew more than 20% over the past year.  Just because not as many people want to pick up the mag or pay for the daily paper, doesn't mean they don't still look for the names they're familiar with.  And although newspaper advertising declined in 2006 and 2007, PwC estimates that it will simply plateau next year.

   

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